Eat your heart out Atten borough!
How the present of a video camera for his bird box has given MAX HASTINGS and his wife a show far more thrilling than anything on TV
My WIFE Penny seldom talks nonsense or springs surprises, but at dawn one day last month, she announced triumphantly: ‘I’m a mother of ten!’
We know medical science can do diabolical things these days, but this sounded ridiculous.
Then she dragged me down to the kitchen, turned on the television and, with possessive pride, showed me a heap of creepy, slippery things pullulating amid a circle of grass and feathers. They were baby blue tits.
I told Penny to be ashamed of herself, for claiming even partial credit for the result of stupendous exertions by a fluttering little bird — the father didn’t seem to do much — that was now going to have to work even harder.
Although we live in the country, I am often embarrassed about how unobservant I am — unlike my rurally omniscient father — about the natural goings-on around us.
But then my sister gave us a new toy: a nesting box with camera and microphone, wireless-linked to our television set.
Last year, to our chagrin, not much happened. In April we sat through meals, glued to bright, colourful images of our empty box. More irksome, several times tits called in, studied the estate agent’s particulars, deposited a few wisps of straw and moss, then disappeared.
The humiliation, my dear. The sense of rejection. What had we done wrong? Was it the colour of the walls, perhaps?
This year, at the outset we thought we were going to have the same disappointment all over again.
Tits came and went, installed a load of furniture — or rather grass and straw — then took most of it away again.
We were baffled, until our neighbourhood twitcher soothed us by saying they often do that. Eventually the birds got down to the nest-building process in earnest, while we watched for hours.
I never imagined there could be so many ways to arrange and rearrange a few piles of dead vegetation. The little bird fluttered furiously over them, shuffling and shifting, diving and digging, beating the nest into shape with her flapping wings.
Then, with some desultory help from her mate, who deserved nothing better than a zero- hours contract, she brought in the wherewithal from her own back to feather the nest. We have now seen that idiomatic phrase brought to life.
By the way, serious birdwatchers should read no more, because of course they know it all. I am writing for the benefit of fellow ignoramuses who have never seen the story unfold in glorious Technicolor.
We followed the egg-laying process breathlessly — one a day, with a lot of argument in the kitchen about how many we had reached, as some were hidden under the feathers. Then the whole lot vanished for most of the day, every day, because madam was sitting. THE
tension, the excitement, the suspense were worse than waiting to find out whether President Trump has started a war yet.
At last came the great hatching day. We did not get ten chicks because one egg failed to break. But the parents immediately embarked on a cycle which grew ever more manic through the next 19 days, to keep their progeny supplied with caterpillars.
Chicks can eat 100 caterpillars a day, so adults need to find as many as 900 caterpillars a day for a brood of nine.
At first, of course, the feeble little mouths could scarcely raise themselves to take in rations. With amazing speed, however, they got the
idea and soon spent most of the day in the default position of every young thing with its parents: gapes wide open, hearts beating fast and furious, demanding more and more and more.
I watched the nesting- box entrance through binoculars, hoping to follow the parents’ courses across the garden, but this got me nowhere because they moved so fast and frantically, disappearing into trees, mingling with the other flying folk.
By day six, my wife and I had stopped holding rave parties and roulette evenings, instead inviting the neighbours simply to come and watch The Birds. Even the least nature-minded of our friends has been gripped.
This is DIY David Attenborough, Life On Earth.
Forget about the BBC’s horridly urban Countryfile programme — you can film it much better yourself, without leaving the house.
We felt curiously guilty to be intruding on intimate family life, almost whispering to each other lest the birds should hear us, though the audio feed goes only one way. It was thrilling to hear the first cheepings, then listen as they grow ever more strident.
My sister warned us that, as the fledglings grew bigger and greedier and the pressure on the parents was more relentless, the nest could become distressing to watch. This past week, we have seen what she meant.
The brood grew at terrifying speed, as if their evolution had been switched to fast-forward.
From one day to the next, feathers appeared and multiplied.
For the first ten days the mother kept diving deep into the nest to retrieve their droppings and carry them out of the box. Latterly, this process was streamlined, with the babies in turn presenting their tiny bottoms to have poos deftly removed and carted out. Penny wanted to take the poor woman some disposable nappies.
Early this week, the disparity in size between some young and others in the brood became apparent, the bigger bullies’ features assuming a look of avaricious ferocity that few hedge fund managers could match.
As the bundle of ever-morefeathered life heaved and strained, it was painful to see the weaker siblings trampled underfoot.
There was no mutual compassion, sympathy or interest in each other’s affairs or holiday snaps, only a fixation to get whatever was held in the parents’ beaks, before their rival nestlings.
I asked innocently, how does the mother know which is next in line? Mothers always know, said Penny firmly.
As for the hours they kept: when I entered the kitchen at 5.30am, the parents were hard at work. And they were still coming and going at 8.30pm. It defied belief, how those frail physiques — those of the adults, I mean — could do it. Penny said: ‘Well, at least they won’t have to pay school fees.’
By Wednesday we were having trouble working out how many survivors were in the nest, as the big brutes preened and flapped their wings on top, rendering invisible their lesser brethren below.
I counted seven but Penny insisted there were still eight, presumably with a corpse somewhere underneath.
They were bursting out of the crèche now, clawing and flapping up to the walls of the box, in almost full plumage save for some bald bits on their chests, looking as big as their parents and up for anything. HOW
painful to reflect on the shocks and perils they were about to face in the outside world. Had anyone told them about rain, or cats?
We said nothing, however, as we know it is a waste of time to try to tell the young anything.
Then yesterday, suddenly, they were gone.
I have been peering around the garden, hoping for a glimpse, but so far nothing.
The parents must be relieved and thankful beyond imagination. At last a bit of time to themselves, after an ordeal we mere humans can scarcely imagine.
We have been filling the birdfeeders to overflowing, in gratitude for the pleasure the whole experience has given us.
Now that we are empty-nesters, we can imagine absolutely nothing on TV that will give such pleasure . . . until next year.